Noreen Younger, a famend Canadian puppeteer maybe greatest identified for creating the favored CBC kids’s present Beneath the Umbrella Tree, has died.
Younger, who was born in Ottawa and labored in puppetry for over 50 years, produced Beneath the Umbrella Tree from 1987 to 1993 and portrayed Gloria Gopher, one of many present’s primary characters.
She was additionally the primary creative director of the Puppets Up! Worldwide Puppet Pageant in Almonte, Ont., which started in 2005 and — save for a hiatus between 2017 and 2022 — remains to be operating.
Younger died after struggling a stroke late final week, her household advised CBC. She was 85.
Puppetry was an ‘act of affection,’ says brother
Younger was named a member of the Order of Canada in 1995, and her biography describes her as a “masterful puppet builder and puppeteer.”
Her work had a long-lasting influence on a technology of youngsters who grew up watching Canadian kids’s programming, mentioned Puppets Up! chair and government director Jane Torrance.
“I do not suppose that there is a child who was born within the 80s or 90s who … watched CBC as a child who would not know Noreen’s work,” Torrance advised CBC.
Younger’s youthful brother, Stephen Brathwaite, can be a puppeteer and performed the character of Jacob Bluejay in Beneath the Umbrella Tree.
He mentioned Younger “was an exquisite sister” and mentioned her work was “an act of affection, actually, for teenagers and for the neighborhood.”
“Her character was her. Gloria Gopher was Noreen Younger. She was a candy, inventive downside fixing bulldozer,” he advised CBC.
Born in 1939, Younger grew up in Previous Ottawa South. Brathwaite mentioned she was thinking about puppets since she was 12 12 months previous and would carry out puppet reveals at shops and low outlets on the town, together with the renowned Le Hibou Coffee House on Sussex Drive.
Brathwaite mentioned Younger went on to artwork faculty, however discovered herself returning to puppetry afterwards.
“I believe she thought, ‘Oh, puppets aren’t cool. I will do drawing and portray and sculpture.’ Which she did,” he mentioned. “After which as quickly as she’s graduated, she was again at, at puppets.”
A few of her earliest work was with one other CBC puppet present, Hello Diddle Day, which aired from 1968 to 1976. She additionally labored on Sesame Park, the Canadian model of Sesame Avenue.
“I believe as soon as she began with puppets and noticed the place they may take her and the place they may take her creative profession, it simply grew to become one thing she was going to do,” Torrance mentioned.
Created caricatures of public figures
Younger was additionally identified for the caricature puppets she created of public figures, starting from former governor basic Adrienne Clarkson and CBC information anchor Peter Mansbridge to native personalities like former Ottawa mayor Jim Watson.
Tributes to Younger have been coming in from folks in Almonte, who’ve laid flowers for her close to a bronze statue of Gloria Gopher within the city simply outdoors Ottawa.
Different puppeteers have written condolences on social media. Canadian puppeteer Ronnie Burkett mentioned in a publish that he knew Younger for nearly 60 years and referred to as her a mentor.
“I wrote her a fan letter after I was ten years previous. Silly girl replied and was caught with me for all times,” he wrote on Instagram.
“I’m extremely unhappy as I mourn her, however so very grateful for figuring out Noreen Younger.”
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